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Nope. Don't keep up with Fender marketing. Squier. Affinity. Player. Pro. Whatever. Wait a few weeks and it will be different again. Thing is, you can buy a Fender made tremolo bridge for under $30. Or you can get one they make that's $150. I don't think they use the $150 one on MIM models.
It's not about country of origin. Asia or Mexico or US. It's not about what you need to make music or how much you love your guitar. The point is, they are not same. They use different parts. And the ones used on the US high margin guitars are fancier.
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11-11-2020 01:35 PM
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No Fender guitar (except maybe for a 4000$ custom shop one) uses a 150$ bridge (that's Callahan or Glendale prices...)
Don't confuse retail prices with manufacturer costs!
The hardware for these guitars (no matter whether it's MIA or MIM) is all made in China or Korea, anyway.
The MIM Vintera Tele and the MIA American Performer Tele use exactly the same bridge...
Nothing wrong with buying an MIA Tele, if it has the specs you like - but if you think you're buying a "better" guitar with "better" parts, you're kidding yourself, it's just a different one, sometime with different parts, but quite often with exactly the same ones...
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Years ago, in my professional life, I heard a private talk by the former VP of sales at Sears. He was
speaking about consumer perception in general and about the sale of automotive batteries specifically.
He told us the primary difference between the good batteries Sears carried and the best selling batteries
in their catalog was the name "DieHard".
True story.
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Economics question: if the parts for a MIA Fender guitar were shipped to Mexico, how would the price compare?
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I’m no economist but I recall Fender shipping bodies to Ensenada for painting and then returning them to Corona where they were fitted with MIA hardware. These were the California series. The price was between the MIM and MIA. I had a couple of Cali Strats. The build was fine. Nice mix of vintage/modern. Nice guitars.
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That's a very hypothetical question, but I guess it would be slightly cheaper, because of cheaper labor costs for assembly.
Incidentally, that DID happen for the first few years after the Ensenada factory opened - they only made the bodies at first, the necks still came from the Corona factory...
Hardware (tuners, bridges, pots) comes from Korea and China in both cases, anyway.
And something that is not widely known: pickups labelled "Custom Shop" are US-made; the noiseless ones are made in China; the rest are made in Mexico - so quite a few MIA models come with MIM pickups...
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I have a MIM Mustang in a bright red. It has two P-90 type pups. It's a very solid instrument with a great neck. I dig it.
Originally Posted by swingtoneman
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I'm happy with my MIM 2000 strat. I put Tone Rider Alnico pickups in it. I shielded the control cavity so it has a bit of noiseless pickups quality. Originally Posted by swingtoneman
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Nir Felder plays a Mexican Strat
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Noooo!!!! Don’t tell me!!!! Originally Posted by waltf
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they did that in the 90's...there was a big fire in the mexican factory...so usa fender necks and bodies would be sent to mexico and they'd just dumb down the hardware and electronics to make them cheaper priced Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles
and just to be clear, maybe these days they've upped the mim parts quality...but for near 30 years they used cheaper parts...so tho no difference maybe now, but it wasn't always...if you were to buy a 2005 used mim, it would not have usa hardware and pups and electronics
not that there's anything wrong with a cheaper guitar..it might be just right for you...i've played great squiers and mim's...just like differences in vintage fenders
cheers
ps- romans- u from tdpri?
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Yup, that's me. Mostly a Tele player (own about 15 - I'll have to count them some time...), I mostly come here for info about archtops...
Oh, and of course you are right about the situation having been different 15, 20 years ago, when MIM definitely meant lower quality build and parts - different situation nowadays...
But that's the same with many countries of manufacture that started out building cheap stuff - just think of Japanese guitars: cheap junk in the 60s, affordable well-made copies in the 70/80s, and now they build some of the best high-end instruments available...
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I understand your point RomanS but just to add a point here about the "cheap junk in the 60s". I was a kid living in Japan in the 60s and there were many very nice guitars there. I came to the USA and saw Japanese guitars at outlets like K-Mart and saw they were shockingly inferior to the pro-level guitars in Japan. The reason? Because American distributors of import guitars wanted only the cheapest instruments so they could distribute them in the chain stores and weren't willing to pay for the better made products. As a result, the impression left was that Japanese guitars were all cheap junk. Now I will agree that Japanese products incrementally improved in what feels like leaps and bounds from 1960 to 1990; but this had much to do with their commitment to Total Quality Management as presented to them in post-WWII years by W. Edward Demmings. Demmings, by the way, attempted to present these points to USA factories, but at that point they weren't interested. The Japanese were interested, and the rest is history. Originally Posted by RomanS
(To roll back to the questions at hand: Yes, MIM Fenders are decent instruments.)
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Until we have access to Fender costs, we'll just have to use retail. And they do use this bridge on some US models. Originally Posted by RomanS
I'm sure you will call out exceptions and special models forever as you are clearly invested in the defense of a position. However, if you grab a US made Stratocaster off the wall at Guitar Center and compare it to the equivalent MIM or asian model, the components will be nicer on the US model. And you don't get to say that the cheaper parts are as good just for the sake of argument when they are clearly different like die cast vs. stamped. The US models are an upgrade in materials. And saying the US and MIM guitars are the same is a disservice to those that will be confused by these posts. It's nice you think MIM is swell.. but it isn't the same product.
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About 10 years ago, the coolest Fenders were made in Mexico. Higher quality parts be damned, the were awesome guitars.
Now its a bit more even in cool factor across the spectrum...but if you want vintage feeling Fenders at a decent price, look for those early/mid 00's "classic" series guitars.
I still have the neck from a MIM '69 Thinline on my latest tele build, and its one of the best necks I've ever played. And the body's a Squier!
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Solid body guitars are pretty simple things. There's intonation, wood density and type/quality of pickups.
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True none the less :-) Craftsmen are just that wherever they hang their hat, and they build to specs Fender supplies. Originally Posted by neatomic
I have a few MIM Fenders and aside from (IMO) meaningless numbers of pieces in the body, and the rear plate holes on single vs. multi ply on strats do not match up. About the only thing I have done to mine is replace all of the front and rear screws with stainless wood screws as the ones from Mexico rust pretty fast.
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I can't find the specific video where you can hear the difference but Josefina pickups are the best I've ever heard in a strat. They're very expensive too;
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Originally Posted by swingtoneman
Yes, in my experience they are.
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Everybody should work in retail for a short period. Then we would know it is all about price points.
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This doesn't address the question directly, but may be of interest.
I have an American Standard Stratocaster. USA made. Bought it new maybe 5 years ago.
Perfectly nice guitar. But, the floating bridge made the guitar useless. It would not stay in tune, whatsover. I had to screw it down tight with 5 springs -- and then, finally, it would hold tune.
I have a Yamaha Pacifica 012, their cheapest Strat copy. $179 new in a kit with an amp, gig back, strap and book. I've gigged a lot with this guitar. I like it because the neck is easy on my arthritic hands. It sounds pretty good too. But the reason I mention it is that it stays in tune, even with the bridge floating. In fact, it stays in tune better than my Comins GCS-1 (which I do think sounds better). The Yamaha is made of some woods I hadn't heard of before I bought it. Agathis? Cocobolo?
To be fair, I had to replace some of the hardware on the Yamaha. It had new tuners when I bought it. I had to replace the switch and the bridge humbucker stopped working (I just disconnected it -- I don't need a bridge pickup). So, it wasn't perfect. But, I can buy five of those kits for the price of the Fender. Or one kit and all kinds of replacement parts. The basic wooden parts (body and neck) seem to be fine.
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The question I was addressing was only that Fender has a tiered product line and there are material differences between the tiers. Not what is functionally equivalent, cool, or a good value.
My best strat and one of the best I've ever played is a Tokai copy of a 50's Fender. I think I paid $150 for it used in the mid-90's.
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I had one of the Offset series Mustangs. MIM, hardtail, similar to the one that I think you're asking about. It was a great guitar. Nice feeling neck, sounded fine. The only issue I had with it was it was a bit neck-heavy so I sold it a while back. If I were to get another I'd look at the Duo-Sonic because of where the cutaway is, it's much better balanced for seating playing. Originally Posted by swingtoneman
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The main difference is likely to be in the hand work and not the basic fabrication and assembly. It will have good 'bones', but as far as playability, some simple things can make it great. I don't know if you do your own setups, but a pro setup will make a big difference. Also, again, if you're handy and comfortable with these sorts of things, taking a fret file to the edges of the frets and smoothing them some more, and likewise rolling the fingerboard edges with an appropriate file will make it feel super nice.
I have a MIM Cyclone II; similar to the guitar you're looking at (Mustang body, short scale, Jaguar pups) that I've done these things to and it's a 'never sell' guitar, because it's sooooo much nicer than what it could sell for. That model came stock with three American Vintage jaguar pups, so sound-wise it's similar to the new American Jaguar Strat but with a shorter scale. I'd love to get one of those to, but at 4X the price, I have a hunch I might find it a bit disappointing.
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I’ve had my tech level and crown the frets and set up and intonate my MIMs. They’re just fine now.
I thought of replacing the cheap and obviously crappy ceramic pickups on my Tele but they do a really terrific jazz sound. I’d consider a wiring upgrade and maybe compensating saddles but I don’t want to pay shipping.
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